


A Light That Never Goes Out

by uchihasass



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 22:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2445962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uchihasass/pseuds/uchihasass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sakura knows the anatomy of a human heart like the back of her hand—as if the dark, green veins that snake across her bony knuckles made up a map to the various chambers of the organ. Her own heart is more of a mystery. All she knows about it is that two idiots make the whole of it, and she will not let one die, when the other has just come home. [sasusaku, team 7]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 

There are no tell tale noises that usually mark the intensive care unit to puncture the silence that permeates. No nurses shuffling around thoughtfully trying to drown the sound of their own footsteps, no medics scribbling hasty notes on rusty clipboards, no life support machines beeping the reminder that they’re hard at work, tenaciously holding on to the fringes of those who are almost certainly already gone. There is nothing.

Nothing, but her and him.

The lights on the whole floor has been dimmed. It is night time and the sick aren’t the only ones supposed to be asleep right now. But sleep is the last thing on both their minds, even though it’s been far too long since they last acquainted themselves with a soft bed.

They stand facing each other, on either side of the corridor. They don’t speak, they don’t even look at each other. He is leaning against the wall, his head upturned and swirling red eyes memorizing the grainy texture of the white ceiling. She carries her own weight, shoulders hunched and eyes downcast with nightmares that are threatening to claw their way into reality. With each passing second, they are ever aware of one another, but they let the emptiness between them stretch. Words somehow fall short of encompassing the breadth of what they have to say, so they just don’t say anything. It’s especially hard, because the only person who would not let a wound this old keep festering lies inside fighting for his life. Knowing Naruto, they know he’s putting up a vicious fight. They also know some opponents are unbeatable, and sometimes the fight goes on until you give in.

The silence persists, mocking them. She thinks back to how when they were genin all she wanted when she was around Naruto was silence, some peace so she could slide over to where their other teammate would be sulking and ask him about his day. She wants to laugh, because the boy literally did not know when to shut up. She wants to laugh, but she cries. The thought of never again seeing him in that ridiculous orange jumpsuit of his, of not ever hearing his loud annoying voice going on and on about some nonsense or another is making her sick to the stomach.

The last words he said before he collapsed into a pile of blood and bones keeps ringing in her ears.

“You better not run now, bastard.” The bastard had indeed looked about ready to run right then. The thud of Naruto’s body hitting the ground had been the only thing that made him turn and look, the only thing that made him stay. She actually chuckles a bit at the thought now. Naruto always did have a funny way of accomplishing things.

"He’s going to be alright, you know.” He says, still stoically considering the ceiling with his sharingan.

"It’s Naruto." He adds, and it’s almost only a whisper.

"He’s going to be fine."

She wants to believe him, but her faith has been burnt one too many times in the last twenty-four hours. More tears start prickling her eyes as she thinks of her beloved shishou. She watched her master heal an entire war-struck village, she watched her as she defied the science of human anatomy and survived every possible wound administered to her, but in the end even the last great sannin withered away. Tsunade gave in, after scattering every last bit of chakra left in her body onto the wailing battlefield. The one she thought invincible, the one she used to look at in sheer wonder, hoping against hope that she would one day be able to harness even a fraction of the skills the greatest kuniochi Konoha has ever known possessed, the one who taught her most of everything she knew. Being strong does not grant anyone a pass from death, even the strongest die in battle and that is precisely what she fears for the boy they are waiting on currently.

“Sakura.”

She is so startled by her name on his lips that she only belatedly realizes he is looking right at her. She wipes the tear stains on her cheeks with the back of her hand and blinks back more tears that are threatening to spill over.

"Naruto’s going to be okay." He says again, with more conviction this time. "Don’t… don’t cry."

She stares at him, mouth hanging open. She has waited an eternity for this moment, for him to come back and stand in front of her so she could catch a glimpse of the sulky little boy she once fell in love with. She sees him now, the same boy who called her annoying yet protected her with reckless abandon numerous times. She has imagined this moment a thousand different ways in the years he’s been gone. In all of them, she was smiling. She cannot bring herself to smile right now. She doesn’t believe his words and the restraint she had somehow managed thus far, suddenly snaps. She falls to her feet, sobbing hysterically.

He’s by her side, on his knees, before she realizes he’s not standing in front of her anymore. His hands are on her shoulder, and somehow this is the most comforted she’s felt in a really long time. He doesn’t do anything with his hands but let them rest on her shoulders, she doesn’t lean into his arms, she is good where she is. He doesn’t say anything more, he just anchors her as she cries and imagines the world without her best friend, her brother.

* * *

tbc

reviews would be appreciated.

 


	2. A Cold Homecoming

Sasuke stared at the diamond seal on her forehead, transfixed by it. She was asleep on a chair next to Naruto’s bed, her head nested by his pale hand. The slightest shift of her body prompted her seal to change colors under the rays of the warm morning sunlight. It was violet, then it wasn’t, it was red, then it wasn’t, it was somewhere between the pink of her hair and the green of her eyes, then it wasn’t. One thing it was for certain, he thought, was fascinating. It was evidence of the fact that Sakura had successfully tapped into the well of potential he always knew she possessed. But glorious as it looked, it also made a stranger out of her. He couldn’t find the twelve-year-old weeping girl he left behind on a cold, stone bench all those years ago when he looked at her now. Even as she had fallen apart in his arms the night before, something about her had spelled true grit and resilience, not frailty. His thoughts took him back to the battlefield, where he had seen her form a barricade against a storm of shrapnel flying their way by splitting open the earth with her bare hands. Frail, indeed, was the last thing he thought of when he looked at her now.

He turned his gaze to Naruto, lying still as a mannequin on the bed. He looked calm in his slumber, like an angel of serenity might have kissed the creases on his forehead away. It was quite a jarring sight to behold, because it wasn’t Naruto. Naruto was fire and smoke, an infuriating concoction of warmth and wrath, which roared in defiance at the smallest gush of wind. He was a walking talking nuisance, not some twisted caricature of tranquility.

The silence that his obnoxious voice left behind was equally unsettling. Sasuke had had a long, uncomfortable history with silence. He’d been plagued by it for the longest time after he moved out of the Uchiha compound. Plagued, because it had felt like a sickness at the time, a cruel glitch in his system. He remembered how his eyes would always snap open before his alarm went off in the mornings, and how he would lay still in his bed waiting for the angry screech of Okaasan’s tea kettle to go off in the kitchen, or the rustling of Otousan sifting through  _Konoha Daily_  in the dining room, or the swishing of Niisan tying his shoe laces up by the front door. He waited until he couldn’t anymore, until he would have to force his body to get up and start getting ready for academy, until he’d have to switch the pair of over eager ears he was wearing with a pair of deaf ones so he didn’t have to hear anyone who wasn’t Okaasan, or Otousan, or Niisan.

Naruto always had been immune to his deaf ears, or rather his deaf ears had been immune to Naruto. It never was a sign of fondness or familiarity that did it. It was aggravating persistence. Naruto wouldn’t shut up, until his words were acknowledged. Sasuke always imagined silence around Naruto would feel gratifying in some way. As he continued to look at his unconscious form, he realized it didn’t.

Sakura let out a soft, almost indiscernible whimper, and his head whipped in her direction. He expected to see her up, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand again, but she was still asleep. Brows furrowed, lips quivering, she was having a nightmare. He thought about waking her up, but immediately decided against it. He knew from personal experience that the worst thing about nightmares was waking up and realizing you were living them.

Her seal was green now. He mentally traced the lines her seal had formed across her face upon release. Sprouting from the center of her forehead, up to her hairline, and down her cheeks. It had been a manifestation of her growth, a welcome declaration of her strength at a critical point in battle. Far removed from the threat of mass peril, he now remembered that it had stirred something in him, seeing her like that. He was quick to dismiss any feeling of pride. No, he wasn’t proud of Sakura, because that would imply he had something to do with the strength she wielded. He had just been surprised, pleasantly so.

Sasuke looked at the two strangers in front of him one last time and decided they would be fine. He was starting to realize that they weren’t as hopeless as he’d once thought. He soundlessly made his way out the sliding door and nodded at the four ANBU guards who’d been waiting for him. They didn’t say anything. He started taking sure steps toward the stairways, and the ANBU troop followed him. 

* * *

Kakashi hated it ten times more than he thought he would. It was an endless barrage of paperwork, one thing after another. There were moments when he couldn’t even make sense of the the inked words in front of him. These moments were few and far between the first day, and he nonchalantly brushed them off as one of the many signs of exhaustion he was experiencing. But today he’d had more instances of official documents looking like ants crawling down invisible pathways than not. That is how he knew he wasn’t cut out for the job. He had always had his doubts before, of course. He’d been the only kid in his academy class who did not want to grow up to be Hokage. It was funny how these things worked out.

There was a slight rapping on the door and without waiting for his permission in walked Shizune. She held a loosely rolled scroll in her hands, probably a message from the Kazekage from the look of the Suna seal he caught.

"The Kazekage wants an update on Naruto’s condition. He’s dispatched a team of sealing experts to Konoha to see if they can help. They should reach the Fire Country border tomorrow morning."

Kakashi sighed. “Write him back saying he still hasn’t gained consciousness, but his vitals remain stable and unchanged.”

Shizune nodded, solemnly.

"Make sure someone is at the gates to greet the Suna team when they arrive. Send an attending medic so they can be briefed on their way to the hospital."

"Hai, Hokage-sama," She said. "Have you had a chance to review the Iwa Peace Treaty yet?"

"Yes, I am reading it right now," Kakashi said, eyeing the lengthy scroll in front of him. "It’s taking longer than I expected. It’s not exactly the type of reading I’m used to, you know." He chuckled awkwardly, hoping to lighten the atmosphere up a bit.

Shizune offered a curt smile, and said, “It’s important you finish reviewing it by sundown. We need to send them any changes we recommend as soon as possible.”

"Ah, yes, I understand." Kakashi cleared his throat and straightened his back. "It’ll be done by sundown. I’m almost finished, really."

She smiled again and turned to leave. Kakashi’s back gave out in a tired slump as soon as she looked away, but the moment she was out the door he felt a familiar chakra right outside his office. His back stiffened once again.

"Ah, Sasuke. Hokage-sama has been waiting for you all morning," He heard Shizune say, from the hallway. "How is Naruto doing?"

"He’s not dead yet," Sasuke said, and Kakashi almost felt a morbid smile crawl up his lips. It was a strange feeling having Sasuke back in Konoha. In some ways, the boy hadn’t changed a bit, but in other ways he was a complete stranger.

He didn’t hear Shizune again. He imagined she must’ve been a little tongue tied at Sasuke’s response. Not everyone was used to his sardonic temperament after all.

Sasuke walked in through the door without knocking. He was flanked by the four ANBU guards he’d sent to the hospital this morning to fetch him. Kakashi nodded at the four men and they disappeared in a huff of smoke as soon as they’d stepped into his room.

"Close the door, Sasuke."

Sasuke obliged mutely. Kakashi knew he hadn’t slept a wink since the end of the war, but he looked as alert as ever.

"Why don’t you take a seat?" Kakashi said, pointing towards one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Sasuke walked further into the room, surveying the pictures that hung on the wall. All the previous Hokages met his eyes proudly, the ones who’d protected the village with their lives looking onto the boy who’d damn well come very close to destroying everything they’d worked for.

"Take a seat, Sasuke." Kakashi said again, a bit more sternly this time.

Sasuke’s wandering eyes finally fell on Kakashi. He walked over to the chair Kakashi had pointed towards earlier and sat down, carefully minding the katana that hung from his waist.

Kakashi let out a long breath and pushed the pile of documents crowding his desk to create room for his elbows. “I guess a good place to start would be, why did you come back?”

"I have unfinished business in Konoha." Sasuke said, his facial expression a constant.

Kakashi was surprised it didn’t take more to wring words out of his former student, but he spoke again, without letting his surprise show. “That sounds awfully ominous coming from someone who once swore to destroy the village.”

"I have no intention of bringing harm to Konoha anymore."

Kakashi had guessed as much. If Sasuke was still bent on avenging his clan by way of annihilating the village, he would not be sitting in front of him right now.

"What is this unfinished business you speak of then?"

"That is none of your business, Kakashi."

"Well, you see, I am the Hokage now… for better or worse," Kakashi couldn’t help but mumble the last part. "Any unfinished business you have with the village is precisely my business."

Sasuke didn’t say anything, but continued to boldly hold Kakashi’s one-eyed stare.

"You cannot just come back to the village and pick up where you left off, Sasuke. That is not how things work."

"If you think I want to pick up where I left off, you are a bigger fool than I ever gave you credit for." Sasuke finally said, a smug smile dancing around the corners of his lips.

Sasuke’s words didn’t sting. For some imperceptible reason, Kakashi had always been impervious to his cold demeanor. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t the warmest person himself. Or maybe because he had once thought he understood the darkness that threatened to clench Sasuke’s heart. He could take anything the kid threw at him normally, but he was slowly running out of time and patience. Shizune was going to be back soon to check on his progress with the Iwa Treaty. The Daimyo wanted to put Sasuke on trial as soon as possible. He didn’t have the luxury to beat around the bush anymore.

"What are you doing here, Sasuke?" He asked again, hoping his harsh tone did enough to mask the inherent fondness he still felt for the boy.

Sasuke dropped his smug smile, and spoke slowly, as if he didn’t trust Kakashi to follow his words. “You asked me what my goal was the day we met. My goal has since changed. I am here to accomplish my new goal.”

"And what might your new goal be?" Kakashi asked, without missing a beat.

"I want to clear my brother’s name," Sasuke said.

"Noble as that thought is, I think you are forgetting about the particular predicament you find yourself in. You are an international criminal, Sasuke. The fact that you and Naruto defeated Kaguya and definitively ended the war will be kept in mind when you go on trial. But one criminal cannot exonerate another."

Kakashi knew he was gonna hit a nerve with this. Sasuke visibly stiffened in his chair and his eyes darkened. The air in the Hokage office suddenly turned sinister as Sasuke’s chakra flared.

"Itachi was not a criminal," He said, each word dripping with thinly masked contempt.

"I know he wasn’t, and we might one day be able to bring that to the public light. But for now, there are things you need to take care of before you can even come close to accomplishing your new goal."

Sasuke didn’t say anything. His momentary chakra spike had disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared, relieving the room of some tension.

Kakashi heaved a tired sigh, and spoke, “Contrary to what you think, Sasuke, I am not fool enough to believe you are telling me the complete truth right now.”

"I will do anything it takes to clear Itachi’s name."

Kakashi would have thought it was a threat, but Sasuke was not looking at him anymore. He had his head slightly bowed, eyes trained on the ground. He expected to be met with defiance, but he was startled to see that it was an unspoken plea.

"And we shall make that happen in due time." Kakashi felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility rush through his being as soon as he let those words out. Without taking too long to think about it, he continued, "In the meantime, you will have to go on trial for your crimes and prove that your loyalties lie with Konoha."

"My loyalties will lie with the one who helps me clear my brother’s name."

"Fair enough," Kakashi said, and summoned the ANBU guards who’d previously escorted Sasuke to his office. They appeared instantaneously in front of him and bowed in unison.

"Please escort Sasuke to the Interrogation Division. Ibiki will be there to receive him." Kakashi spoke to the ANBU guards, and continued, looking at Sasuke now, "You are expected to cooperate with the war investigations. We’ll speak again soon, Sasuke."

Sasuke didn’t say or do anything to acknowledge his words. He simply got up and started walking out the door, the four ANBU guards closely following his trail. Kakashi watched his retreating form, his eye narrowing in on the Uchiha crest printed upon the back of Sasuke’s shirt.

* * *

Sakura sprang awake from her nightmare in a cold sweat. The room was flooded with light, and she had to squint to let her eyes readjust. As soon as her vision focused, she realized that the room was empty save for Naruto, who still lay unconscious in his bed. Her first thought was that her nightmare had come true,  _Sasuke had abandoned them again_. She was quick to dismiss the thought before she truly started panicking though. He had probably been escorted to see Kakashi-sensei. It was very generous of him to have granted Sasuke a day by Naruto’s side, but even a Hokage couldn’t delay taking an international criminal into custody for too long. She let herself ponder upon the question which had been bugging her ever since they’d rushed Naruto to the hospital. Would Sasuke have run if not for Naruto collapsing at the end of their battle with Kaguya? Because she was so sure she’d seen him turn his back to them, like he’d been ready to leave without so much as a goodbye like all those years ago.

She belatedly realized that she had drool lining the corners of her mouth. She pulled the end of her sleeve to wipe it away, and turned to look at Naruto. He looked exactly as he had before she’d unwittingly let sleep consume her body. If Sakura had never seen Naruto sleep, she would have thought that was exactly what he was doing. Just sleeping after a long, hard war to get his wits together, to recuperate some and wake up to the loud cheering of the whole village who undoubtedly loved him with no reservations at this point. But she’d shared one too many extended missions with him to know better. No one could miss the peculiar way in which he always fell asleep in his bed roll, but woke up at least five meters away snuggled with the trunk of a tree or perhaps a log of half burnt wood. He lay on his bed now, not with his limbs sprawled in every which direction, but in a straight, painfully rigid position.

"Naruto…" She said, voice tired and desperate. The cardio monitor connected to his chest showed that his heart beat was stable and well within the normal range. She lightly took his hand in hers and noticed how comfortably warm it was. "He’s back, Naruto. Sasuke-kun is back, and you should be awake, celebrating with me right now."

She willed herself to not shed a single tear this time. She’d cried enough. She’d cried for Sasuke, for her shishou, and now for Naruto.

"You idiot." She was so dangerously close to breaking again. "I will seriously punch you so hard if you die. Please… don’t die. Please."

She blinked back the tears that had predictably materialized in her eyes. She furiously told herself to get a grip and tightened the hold she had on his hand.

"You are not going to die, you hear me? I will save your ass from whatever it is that has you right now, I will beat it and you will come home to me and Sasuke-kun, you hear me, Naruto? I promise he’ll be here when you wake up."

She wasn’t sure if it was the despair getting the best of her or what, but she had a sinking feeling that she wasn’t going to be able to keep her promise. And that is when her tears defiantly fell.

* * *

 

tbc

reviews are love.


	3. Splitting Earth, Carving a Path

Sakura stood in the doorway of her shishou’s personal study, unsure about what she was trying to accomplish. The hallway was completely deserted, so it wasn’t that she was worried about being found. The disciplinary ramifications of trespassing were the last thing she cared about in that moment. She was more apprehensive she might be crossing a personal line, afraid her impending actions might be violating an unspoken code. Senju Tsunade had never been much of a private person. Everyone who was anyone in the Konoha shinobi ranks knew about her tragic past and her troubled history with drinking and gambling. Tsunade had always had very little, both in way of her past and present, that she kept to herself. Her personal study just so happened to be one of the very few things that she did not welcome wandering minds and souls into. In all the years that Sakura had worked as her apprentice, she was never once invited to this place, and neither was Shizune. It was safe to assume that no one but their master had ever been inside this room. Under normal circumstances, Sakura would be afraid she was summoning the wrath of the ancient gods by entering her master’s study, unbidden. The only reason she was breaking and entering was precisely because she found herself steeped in a highly unusual circumstance.  

Sakura took a deep breath, ignored her nerves, and stepped into the dark room.

She found the light switch to the right of the door and flicked it on. Suddenly bathed in a bright yellow tone, the room looked intimidating in its vastness. The space itself wasn’t very big, but the wall facing the door had a ceiling length shelf, with rows upon rows of special scrolls and books. Her shishou had inherited most of them from her grandparents, but mixed in the bunch were some she had collected from her travels across the lands. It was among these very scrolls and books that she hoped to find the answer she was seeking. She took another step forward and closed the door shut behind her.

A distinct smell wafted through the study, a familiar combination of her master’s favorite sake and jasmine scent water. It felt increasingly like the Godaime could burst in through the door any second and land one of her legendary chakra-infused punches on her own disciple. Sakura felt immobilized by a burning desire to see exactly that unfold. She wanted so badly to hear her master’s harsh berating, even take a couple of those punches she knew were  _really_  gonna hurt.

She walked to the thick, mahogany desk overlooking the only window in the room. The desk was bare, save for a book with no name on its leather cover and a lean glass jar, with a lone stalk of a wilting yellow  _kaneshon_. She pulled the dying flower out of the jar and considered its sorry state. It seemed death was knocking on everyone’s door these days. She picked up the no-name-book, struck open a random page, and placed the flower there. She closed the book, effectively pressing the flower, and put it inside her rucksack. This wasn’t stealing, she told herself. This was procuring a keepsake from her master, because she didn’t have any.

She looked over to the bookshelf and ruefully wondered just how disappointed her master must be in her, looking down from the heavens. Sakura had missed – no, not missed, but deliberately skipped – the funeral service. She hadn’t gotten a chance to say goodbye to her master in the battlefield, and she’d also passed on the chance to pay her final respects. She had rationalized the choice by telling herself she didn’t need to attend a mass ceremony to pay her respects, that she could do it in her own time, by her own self. Now, with panic slowly settling in, it felt like she had disrespected her master by not going and was further heaping insult to her generous spirit by invading and  _stealing_ from the only place she didn’t offer to the world. She didn’t move an inch, no, she couldn’t move an inch; she was frantically looking up and down the tall book shelf, taking deep breaths to calm herself, when suddenly, by way of sheer randomness, her eyes fell on a particularly dusty looking spine of an old book.

_Fūinjutsu: Ancient Uzumaki Sealing Techniques._

Her panic subsided at once, and her mind experienced a singular moment of clarity. She remembered why she’d come here in the first place. She walked towards the shelf, stood on her tiptoes to reach for the book, and pulled it out of the shelf. In her shaking hands, she hoped she held the key to saving Naruto’s life. 

* * *

Sasuke could not say this with any level of certainty, but it had to have been at least a week since he was escorted to the Interrogation Division and thrown into this holding unit. He had counted six sun rises and sun downs by tracking the meals that were coming through the little cubby hole at the bottom of the steel door. By his own, admittedly not wholly reliable, estimation, he had slept for approximately twenty-eight hours after first being brought down here.

He was surprised they hadn’t just whisked him into the interrogation room the minute he stepped foot into the building. He imagined the Daimyo must just be itching to get him executed, so he knew the delay was coming from the Interrogation Division itself. 

Morino Ibiki was likely purposely stalling his interrogation to stir fear and anxiety in him.  _Isolate and intimidate_ , it was the oldest trick in the amateur interrogator’s arsenal. He was slightly disappointed that the Morino Ibiki he’d heard so much about was employing such laughably primitive technique to unnerve him. The stall had only given Sasuke time to get some much-needed rest and collect his thoughts. The holding unit had just enough space for his basic katana routine, and though his katana had been confiscated before he was locked up, Sasuke still pushed himself to practice for hours on end. His body felt stronger now than it had in a while. His mind, however, was a different story.

He wouldn’t say that he was worried about Naruto. He knew the moron wasn’t going to die – not now, not any time soon either – like he knew he wasn’t going to get executed for his crimes. Naruto had survived the extraction of the Kyuubi from his body during the war; whatever that plagued him now could not be worse than that. The only thing that seemed a little concerning was that no one could figure out what was wrong with him. He knew that was really what tore Sakura apart on the inside. Being an accomplished medic-nin, she fully expected to be able to save her friend from the throes of death. He remembered how diligently she had worked on his case when they first brought him to the hospital, but by the time night fell she had lost faith in her own ability. Naruto’s condition was very strange indeed. Physiologically speaking, he was completely fine; he was unconscious and unresponsive when he had no reason to be.

Sleep had been elusive after his first night in the holding unit. He got no more than two or three hours of sporadic shuteye each night. He saw Sakura in his dream one time. She was shrouded in darkness, but the lines of her released seal were glowing, illuminating her face in a lovely green light. She was smiling that young, unburdened smile that didn’t seem to come to her anymore. She had smiled that familiar smile and said,  _Sasuke-kun_ , with the happy lilt of the carefree twelve-year-old genin she used to be. That was it, and her form disintegrated from where he could see her with eyes closed, before he had a chance to study the glowing lines on her face or ruminate the demise of her childhood spirit. He didn’t know what to make of the dream. All he knew was that it was the first one he’d had in a long time, which didn’t end with him jerking awake in the middle of the night.

He would be lying if he said that was the first time he’d dreamed about Sakura. He’d had quite a few dreams involving her since he abandoned Konoha. Most of them were in the context of some distant Team 7 related memory or another, but there had been a couple that jostled him out of sleep, the sheer audacity of his unconscious mind brewing up such inane things shocking more than anything else. He hadn’t had those kinds of dreams since he learned the truth about Itachi. He blamed his relative physical inactivity and the looming steel door and the general unease of being imprisoned for dreaming about Sakura. There was nothing else to it. 

“Tch,” Sasuke said, in annoyance. He stood up from his cot with the thought of practicing his routine once again, but just then, he heard the lock on the door turn. There was a moment of stillness, then the door propped open with a loud clang.

He supposed he was finally being summoned for his interrogation and expected to see a guard at the door. But, there was no one. It took him only a moment to concentrate and recognize the special chakra that lay stationary outside the door.

“Why are you here?” Sasuke asked, voice gruffer than usual from disuse.

“The Hokage thought I should keep you company during your interrogation.” The chakra stationed outside the door moved, and Pakkun sauntered into his line of vision, looking as bored as ever. “Long time no see, eh kid?”

* * *

The interrogation room was predictably dank and barren. There was nothing but a table in the middle of the room, and a chair on either side, facing the other. Sasuke was seated in one of the chairs, while Pakkun rested on the table, lazily wagging his tail. They had been waiting for Morino Ibiki for well over ten minutes now. 

“Punctuality used to mean something,” Pakkun suddenly said, sitting up straight. “Not anymore, I guess.”

Sasuke noticed that Pakkun stopped wagging his tail when he talked and resumed it right after he’d finish. He was pacing across the table now, shaking his head.

“Where have you got to be anyway?” Sasuke couldn’t help but snipe. He’d waited over a week in that holding unit, not knowing when he was going to be summoned or what was going to be asked of him, but for some reason, the past ten minutes had felt more cumbersome. 

Pakkun stopped pacing and threw a suspicious look his way, as if not sure Sasuke had really spoken.

“A myriad of places, actually. Turns out serving the Hokage is no walk in the park.”

Sasuke didn’t offer a response.

“Me and the boys had a bet going on,” Pakkun went on, unfazed by Sasuke’s blatant disinterest. “You know, about whether or not Boss was going to become Hokage, eventually. I always knew I was going to see his face carved on that mountain one day.”

Sasuke snorted at that, a half derisive, half mocking laugh.

“Well, I didn’t  _always_  think he was gonna become Hokage. It’s not for lack of skills or knowledge, mind you. It’s just-”

“Kakashi wants to be Hokage as much as any sane person wants to get a kunai in the eye.”

Pakkun looked at him, with eyes bright and tail wagging in the air. “I think he’s mostly heartbroken about not being able to read his books.”

Sasuke almost let a smile curl around the corners of his lips. He caught himself before it could materialize, choosing to purse his lips into a frown instead. Pakkun noticed the shift in his mood and sat down in front of him, his tail at a standstill once again.

“How’ve you been holding up anyway? They can’t have put you in a nice, cozy room.”

Sasuke let the question hang in the air for a moment before he spoke. “It isn’t too bad.”

“Have you looked into a mirror lately? You’re not fooling anyone, kid. Me and the boys hear all sorts of horror stories about what goes on down here.”

His eyebrows pinched closer together, but Sasuke did not deign to respond. He stood to gain nothing by engaging in this conversation. He had found a lone black splotch on the otherwise whitewashed wall that he was intently staring at. 

“Well, you look better than the other two, that’s for sure.”

Sasuke did not need to ask who “the other two” were. He continued staring at the black splotch, refusing to acknowledge the questions that were just at the very tip of his tongue. 

“The sealing experts from Suna were useless,” Pakkun said, disdainfully shaking his head. “Forget about solving the problem, these folks don’t even know what the problem is! His Eight Trigrams seal is intact and should be working, but something is amiss, something isn’t adding up. Boss would probably grill me for saying this, now that he has to worry about being ‘diplomatic’ and what not, but the Kazekage might as well have saved his breath and never sent these so-called experts over. Absolute waste of time, it was.”

Sasuke was hardly surprised to hear any of this, but before he had a chance to further process the new information, Pakkun spoke again.

“Sakura left the hospital after the Suna-nins couldn’t come up with anything. The Hyuuga girl has been by Naruto's side since then. That was four days ago. Haven’t seen her since. She wasn’t even at the Godaime’s funeral. Boss has Guruko keeping an eye on her though, so you can stop looking so distraught.”

Sasuke straightened his furrowed brows and curtly closed his mouth, which had momentarily hung open. His disposition hadn’t changed because he was worried about Sakura. He wasn’t worried about Sakura. He knew Sakura to be of a very sentimental temperament and was merely finding it hard to believe that she didn’t attend her own master’s funeral service.

Sasuke had always had trouble masking how he felt. He walked around wearing his anger and pain for all the world to see for so long that, in hindsight, it really was no surprise that Orochimaru preyed on his vulnerability. After he left the village, he paid deliberate attention to closing shut the open book that his countenance once used to be. He acquired meticulous control over his own emotions; he learned how to channel his messy hatred into something cleaner, something sharper, something infinitely more formidable. He had made an art form out of not showing, not saying, of being no more than the deliverance of retribution he hoped to see one day. It had been a point of silent pride for him – until he learned the truth about Itachi.

A lot had changed since then, most inconvenient of which certainly was that a dog could take a shot at his thoughts and get it more right than wrong.

“Stop talking,” he retorted, his impatience and frustration getting the best of him.

“Has anyone told you what a delightful conversationalist you are?” Pakkun snickered, leisurely scratching his ears.

“If you would like to walk out of this room the way you walked in, on all four of your paws, I suggest you watch your words,” Sasuke warned.

"Hold your horses, kid. It's still too early in the day for death threats," he chuckled, licking one of his paws. "You can be worried about your friends, you know. It’s nothing to be ashamed about."

Sasuke found it very hard to reconcile what he knew being a friend entailed with how he'd purposely abandoned Naruto and Sakura. He knew they still considered him a friend in spite of everything. He couldn't, however, extend the same generosity to himself. He was completely unworthy. He wasn't a friend; he was poison that both Naruto and Sakura had unwittingly been exposed and accustomed to, a bad habit that they couldn't break for some inconceivable reason.

"I don't have friends," Sasuke said, finally. There was an edge to his voice, which could easily be mistaken to mean he wasn't telling the truth. He supposed that's exactly what Pakkun would assume, but he didn't care enough to correct him.

"I am sure you don't," Pakkun reiterated, rolling his eyes.

"How much longer till the interrogation begins?" Sasuke's patience was quickly depleting.

"Your guess is as good as mi-"

The door suddenly swung open. Sasuke expected to see Ibiki Morino’s hulking, scarred face, but standing at the doorway was not the head of the Interrogation Division but Sakura.

"I- I-," She spoke in gasps, trying to catch her breath. "I need you to come with me, Sasuke-kun."

* * *

Saying no had always come as easy as a lousy excuse to Kakashi. The two actually almost always came in a pair. Why was he late for the team meeting? He had to make a detour to help an old lady carry her groceries back to her place. Did he want to grab ramen with the team after training? He couldn’t, because he needed to complete a report for a mission that no one else had heard of. Bar hopping with the jounins Friday night? He would love to, but he'd been put on alcohol probation by the Godaime herself. He had never cared enough to put much thought or consideration into rejecting anything he didn't deem worth his effort.

But this, this wasn't easy saying no to.

He took a deep breath and said, "What you're asking for is beyond the realm of my authority, Sakura."

She looked crestfallen. Just five minutes ago, she'd come barging into the Hokage office looking like someone had pumped new life into her. Knowing he was responsible for robbing her renewed hope, the guilt hit him hard and fast. 

"I'm sorry, but I can’t do anything about this," he said, head hanging low.

"But this may be the only way to save Naruto. You're the Hokage now, Kakashi-sensei. You have the power to help me, to help Naruto.  _Please_." 

His former student stood in front of him with pleading eyes, but the hard lines on her tired, pallid face foretold the kind of resolve which could send armies cowering away from the battlefield. He had no doubt she had what it took to begin and end wars.

"Sakura-"

"Naruto saved the world, he saved this village. What I’m asking for cannot be more than a mere inconvenience in the face of all that he’s done for us. I know you could make the daimyo understand." She wasn’t pleading anymore. She was like a flame, quickly soaring to the skies, threatening to engulf it whole in its blazing glory. 

"This isn't just about the daimyo. If I listen to you, I would essentially be throwing a wrench into international relations. This is a very critical point for international peace, and I-I-" He let out a defeated sigh, and continued. “My hands are tied, Sakura.”

"I am not going to sit here and argue with you about whether or not Naruto's life is more important than world peace. I am not going to tell you that he risked everything to save this godforsaken village and now he's paying the price for it. You already know these things." That he did, but hearing them out loud – in such a disappointed, accusatory tone, no less – cut him up inside.

Kakashi wondered how he always found himself on the wrong side of the fight. Obito, Rin – he had failed to save them both. All the good intentions in the world hadn’t been enough to avert the hands of fate. What happened to them was cemented in time, but Naruto was not beyond help just yet. He wanted more than anything for him to wake up and give him a stink eye for stealing the Hokage seat right from under his nose. But here he was, playing the devil's advocate, prioritizing the safety of the village over the life of a loved one once more.

"If you cannot help, if you  _will_  not help, I am going alone.” Sakura said. “Thank you for your time, Hokage-sama.”

She extended him a deep bow and turned to leave without meeting his eyes.

“I cannot allow Sasuke to leave the village with you.” Kakashi said. “It is out of my jurisdiction as the Hokage, Sakura.”

She stopped just by the door, but didn’t turn back to look at him.

“What is also out of my jurisdiction is what you do on your own time and by your own means.” He faked a cough, and continued, “It would be a shame, if say, someone were to break Sasuke out of the Interrogation Division and flee the village in the middle of the day. Wouldn’t it?”

Sakura slowly turned around to look at Kakashi. His eyes gleamed with the kind of mischief she hadn’t witnessed since long before the war started. 

“That is the only way, Sakura. Konoha cannot release Sasuke into the free world as things stand right now. If he leaves, he leaves as a fugitive.” He spoke deliberately slow, each word out of his mouth carrying the burden he must bear as the Rokudaime.

Sakura didn’t say anything, but her features weren’t contorted into hard, angry lines anymore.

“I cannot do anything at the moment.” He continued, “But once the two of you are back in Konoha, I will take responsibility for everything.”

“Will that be alright, Kakashi-sensei?” She spoke so gently that it was hard to believe this was the same girl who’d exuded a terrifying aura just a moment ago.  

“Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, no?” he said, smiling his one-eyed crinkled smile. “Trust your old man, Sakura. He’s a leader of a hidden village now.”

“Kakashi-sensei…”   

He thought she was going to cry, so he did the most natural thing and turned away to look out the window, onto the village.

“Pakkun will assist the two of you in whatever way possible. He will also act as a messenger between us, so I know what’s happening with you, and you know what’s happening with Naruto. I’ll give you a vial of my blood before you leave, so you can summon Pakkun as you need.”

“Thank you, thank you, Kakashi-sensei.” She sounded a little choked up, but the smile in her voice was unmistakable. 

He turned around to face her and found he was right. She was smiling through her tears. “I need you to bring Sasuke back to Konoha no matter what happens.”

She nodded furiously, and the gesture was so oddly reminiscent of back when Team 7 was still unbroken that he couldn’t help but crack a smile under his mask. The smile was fleeting, however, as he wondered if she comprehended the true burden of the task he had just entrusted to her.   

He took a moment, and spoke again, “This girl, what if she doesn’t cooperate?”

“Sasuke-kun will make sure she does.”

“And what makes you so certain Sasuke is even going to agree to this?”

“I just know it,” Sakura said, the resolve he’d seen earlier back in her face. “Sasuke-kun will definitely help.”

Kakashi nodded, cleared his throat, and spoke, with an authority he hadn’t utilized through the entirety of this conversation, “Haruno Sakura, I am hereby assigning you a covert S-ranked mission to locate and escort the only other known descendant of the Uzumaki clan, Uzumaki Karin, back to Konoha.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama.”

* * *

tbc

/

 **a/n** :  _kaneshon_  is japanese for carnation.

 **a**  big thank you to my brilliant beta, SouthSideStory, for reading through this chapter and sprinkling it with her awesomeness.   

 

 


	4. Glass Half Empty, Glass Half Full

Sakura never thought she would find herself walking into the Konoha Interrogation Division with a premeditated plan to break out an international criminal. She'd witnessed far stranger things unfold since she became a kunoichi of the Leaf, sure—but that she would be landing punches on people sporting the same hitai-ate as her one day, had never crossed her mind.

But she did what she had to, and after knocking five jounin interrogators and four ANBU guards out cold, she finally found herself in front of the boy she'd come for.

"I need you to come with me, Sasuke-kun."

Sakura could swear she had seen a flicker of surprise on Sasuke's face when she burst in through the door. He looked at her now with cold, opaque eyes that betrayed no emotion.

"What are you doing here, Sakura?" Sasuke asked.

"I'll explain later, I promise. We really need to leave now." She took a deep breath, and added, " _Please._ "

She was ready for more resistance, ready with a clipped non-explanation that would convey the gravity of her request, but he coolly got up, and made his way toward her.

"You've taken care of the guards." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes. All the ones stationed along the South East entry."

"Perfect," Pakkun said. "You'll have to exit through the North side of the building, so be prepared for more."

Together, they took out every guard who came their way, guards she hadn't already beaten to a pulp when she stormed into the Interrogation Division like some unstoppable force of nature. When they reached the far-north side of the building, an ostentatious punch to a wide wall was all it took to literally bring the shortest route to the Konoha borders at their feet.

Getting rid of the jounin tails after that was easy. Pakkun took pieces of their clothing and ran off to scatter them in every direction within a twenty-mile radius to throw off the sensor-class ANBU.

They were well outside of Konoha now, running in sync, running in silence. Sasuke was naturally faster, but he stayed only a few steps ahead of her. Close, but still just a touch out of reach.

They hadn't exchanged a word since they'd talked about the guards. She knew she needed to explain why they'd just abandoned Konoha, but she couldn't do it right then. Sakura's insides were a whirlwind of emotions – grief, anger, fear, and now a glint of hope of the kind she had long forgotten, all furiously spinning round and round, colliding together, becoming one. Words, it seemed, did not know how to shape the hodgepodge of her turbulent thoughts into human coherency. He seemed content enough with her silence, so she decided she was going to tell him when he asked.

The trees they passed were more lion-colored than green, a sign that autumn was finally here. The Fire Country air was warm as always, but the pleasant afternoon heat was slowly making way for the cool evening. Once night fell, they'd have to stop and take shelter somewhere. She wasn't worried about the darkness making them more vulnerable. Sasuke was a master dojutsu wielder. He knew darkness like the back of his hand.

As they continued jumping from branch to branch, the occasional birdcall and the swishing of their own clothes were the only sounds that followed them. Sakura couldn't help but let her eyes linger on Sasuke's back from time to time. The Uchiha crest emblazoned on his shirt held her gaze with equal measures of pride and burden. She imagined the weight of that crest bearing down on him and the wounded pride of his ancestors pumping venom through his veins—both taking him by his hand and leading him to places that were found only so you could lose yourself in them. Did he leave those places behind, or did he carry them around with him?

He was so much taller now than she remembered, so much bigger in every way than the boy she used to think of every night as sleep took her. It wasn't just how high he stood; his shoulders were broader, his hands bigger, even his hair seemed a shade darker, which she knew was logically impossible, because it'd always been raven black to begin with. Everything about the boy who ran gracefully a couple of steps ahead of her felt foreign.

"We'll need to stop soon," he said, still looking ahead.

"Yes, as soon as the sky turns dark. We need to get as far away from Konoha as possible before that."

He didn't say anything in return, so she continued, "I can explain once we stop."

"Hn," she heard him say, and it almost knocked the wind out of her. For as much of a stranger as Sasuke was to her now, he also felt achingly familiar. It was in the way his hair rigidly stayed in place in spite of all its unruliness, and the way he wore the exact same stoic face only with sharper edges, and the way he responded in monosyllables, like he was not a day older than twelve. The familiarity startled her bones, like diving into an ice-cold lake on a foggy winter morning might. It simultaneously made her feel like she was drowning and like she hadn't ever been more alive.

* * *

To say Kakashi had seen better days would have been a colossal understatement. It hadn't been longer than a few hours since Sakura and Sasuke had fled Konoha, but news of their escape had probably reached farther than them. He grimly wondered how many of the injured foreign shinobis getting nursed at  _Konoha General_ were spies. Perhaps he was just letting his paranoia get the best of him, but one could never be too careful—especially not at the heels of such a bloody war, when tensions arguably ran higher than relief.

"Your official statement is ready, Hokage-sama." Shizune walked through his door, without knocking or otherwise announcing herself. "You just need to sign it, and it'll be sent out to all the Kages and Daimyos."

"Ah, yes, of course," he started, wanting to make light of the fact that someone else had written his official statement, but ultimately decided against it.

Shizune handed him the scroll with one hand, a stick of the leaf wax seal gingerly held in another. The first thing his eye fell on when he surveyed the scroll was the sign off at the bottom.

_Hatake Kakashi,_

_Rokudaime Hokage, Konohagakure_

– it read.

"It's been reviewed by the International Relations Office already, so you really just need to sign it," Shizune said, delicately.

"Oh, I don't even have to pretend to read it before I sign? That's the best news I've heard all day." He picked up a pen, and signed the scroll with an exaggerated flourish. "Here you go."

She took the scroll back from him and gave him an apologetic smile.

Kakashi had rarely interacted with Shizune before he took office, and he had never spoken to her without the presence of the Godaime. Every time she came in to see him now, there was an uncomfortable distance between them. He thought about how just seeing his masked face must break her heart again and again. This place belonged to her shishou, her companion of so long, and now he resided upon it.

"Thank you, Shizune," he said, as she turned to leave. She took a pause and nodded, giving him a more generous smile this time. There was an understanding between them at the very least, he thought. Neither of them wanted to be here, so they were both going to make it as easy as possible for the other.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Morino-san wants an audience with you again," she said, voice tired and wary. "I told him you'd left the office for the day. He's camped outside the building though, so take the roof on your way out."

He nodded, "Appreciate it."

He could say with utmost sincerity that he had nothing but respect for Morino Ibiki. The man was a celebrated war hero and the best Interrogator Konoha had by a long shot. But the day Kakashi would see him on the street and  _not_  start running in the opposite direction was probably never going to come. He'd already spent an hour earlier being drilled about how the prison break was going to hang over the Hokage's head, not the Interrogation Division. He really didn't want to see him again, at least not today.

He stood up and turned around to watch the orange of the setting sun bleed onto the thirsty horizon. Sakura and Sasuke had probably lost the jounin tails by now. He decided it was safe to summon Pakkun, but the sinking sun held his eye. As it descended bit by fiery bit, he considered how it had always reminded him of Naruto. For as long as he could remember, Naruto had displayed the characteristics of the sun, the exuberant mid-afternoon sun, in particular. Always so bright, so eager, and so overwhelming—a winning, if slightly exhausting, mix of the warmth of his beloved sensei and the crackle of sensei's wife. Now, bedridden and unconscious, he was more a crepuscular afterthought.

He pulled his mask down and bit the tip of his thumb. A small dot of blood spilled out. He deftly performed the hand signs, and slammed the hand with the bloody thumb onto the carpeted floor.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu."

Pakkun materialized in a cloud of smoke, accompanied by a loud bursting pop.

"Hey, Boss," he greeted, leaping onto the cluttered Hokage desk and easily balancing his small weight on top of a pile of official documents.

"How did it go?" Kakashi asked.

"As smooth as you could've hoped for a mission with no prep time."

"What about Sasuke?"

"Kid's no danger to Konoha. He might be a danger to himself though. I haven't felt human chakra that muddled in a really long while."

Kakashi let that sink in. He had been wary of Sasuke's return. He knew he'd been honest when he said he came back to clear Itachi's name, but somehow, it didn't feel like the complete truth.

"Boss," Pakkun interrupted Kakashi's thoughts. "He's going to be fine. Sakura's with him."

"Right," Kakashi said. "When do you think they'll cross the Fire Country border?"

Pakkun turned his head to look out the giant windows behind Kakashi's chair. The sky was rapidly turning dark and purple, like a bad bruise coming into form.

"That depends on how far this storm is going to spread."

* * *

Angry raindrops started pelting them while the Fire Country border was still a considerable length away. Navigating through the wet, sloshy forest, Sakura grimly thought this wasn't an auspicious start to the mission at all. The rain would wash away any breadcrumbs they might've dropped along the way. That was the only upside to this.

She was soaked from head to toe, and so was Sasuke, still steps ahead of her. He hadn't yet suggested they stop. Though the sky was darkening, night hadn't quite fallen yet. An odd fear had settled into Sakura's stomach as soon as they lost the tails on them. As they drew closer and closer to rest, she realized she wasn't ready to face Sasuke.

"There's a small village about five miles north. We'll stop there," he said, suddenly.

"That sounds good," Sakura agreed, trying hard to keep the anxiety from seeping into her voice.

They reached the outskirts of the village in no time. Sakura could barely make out the smattering of lights hovering over the distance as they kept pace. Rain and darkness obstructed their vision, but she figured this was one of those off the map, non-shinobi villages that largely stayed self-contained in every imaginable way.

They stopped running once they reached the perimeter of the village. Sakura could finally walk by his side, if she wanted, but she found that she didn't. She trailed behind him, both of them carefully surveying their surroundings for signs of possible shelter and potential danger. She kept stealing glances of his back; afraid he might stop walking suddenly, afraid she might crash right into him.

"Did you see Naruto before you came to the Interrogation Division?" Sasuke asked.

"Not right before, no," she said. "I couldn't."

"What is your plan?" he asked, without missing a beat.

"We are going to find Uzumaki Karin—"

One moment she had been squinting her eyes, trying to read the words on a small, fluorescent business sign to her left, and the very next Sakura had bumped her forehead against the broad of Sasuke's back.

"S-Sorry." She took a few steps back, and hastily said, "I didn't see you."

"Why do you want to find Karin?" he asked, remaining still.

Sakura hadn't imagined this conversation would be an easy one, but something about Sasuke's reaction really unnerved her.

She refused to let it deter her, and started speaking. "I suspect Naruto's condition has something to do with his body sustaining various bijuu chakra on the battlefield. In a span of a single day, he had the yin and yang halves of Kurama extracted from and transferred into his body, and then he received and retained them both after Kaguya's defeat. He also had chakra from the other bijuus in his body at one point."

"Are you suggesting chakra corruption? That's impossible. Bijuu chakra is the purest form of chakra there is. It couldn't have corrupted his chakra network." Sasuke said, with such easy dismissal that Sakura couldn't help but feel a little indignant. She was glad then that he wasn't facing her.

"I am suggesting chakra nodes exhaustion, not chakra corruption. The Uzumaki Clan were known for storing especially large reserves of chakra in their bodies, and so their chakra systems were also more evolved than the rest of us. But even for them, having the chakra of multiple bijuus in and out of their body in a single day would have taken a physical toll. Naruto's chakra network looks unharmed, but his chakra nodes aren't properly transmitting chakra through his body. They're transmitting only the bare minimum amount needed to keep him alive."

Sasuke remained silent for a second, and then asked, "What about the Kyuubi?"

"Kurama can't do anything if Naruto's chakra nodes are as good as fried."

"What can Karin do?"

"I don't know yet. But surely the only other known living Uzumaki would be a good place to start if we want to solve an Uzumaki Clan specific problem."

Sasuke didn't say anything more. He started walking into the cold darkness again after a few moments. Sakura resumed her pace behind him. She was relieved it had been as simple as that to fill him in on the mission. But her anxiety didn't leave her. It stayed, though for a different reason.

The rain showed no signs of stopping, but they didn't have to stray too far into the village. They found a small, nondescript inn on the very edge of the village, and decided it would have to be the roof over their heads for the night.

"Sasuke-kun," she called, as they neared the main entrance of the inn.

He turned to her, and she noticed his hair had fallen in front of his rinnegan, rainwater dripping from the tips of his bangs onto his face.

"I was going to say that it's probably not a good idea to walk in with your rinnegan exposed," Sakura said, "But your hair seems to have taken care of that already."

She couldn't help but smile. She didn't expect him to smile back (and he didn't), but this was the first time she had seen his hair out of place, in all the years she'd known him and not known him. It warmed her heart, which was really the only thing she could've asked for on such a cold night.

He nodded, and turned to start walking towards the inn entrance again. They rented two separate rooms. After a wordless goodbye, they parted ways for the night.

Once inside her room, Sakura took her muddy sandals off and let her duffel bag fall off her shoulders. She walked straight into the shower, and turned the dial to the hottest setting. Layer by layer, she stripped off her wet clothes. She let the scalding water assault her cold, shivering body. She was tired beyond belief, but she couldn't afford to relax. Today had just been the beginning, after all.

* * *

Kakashi eyed the top of the grey bandana on Morino Ibiki's head, flitting about the compound of the Hokage building. He had to admire the man's persistence, but he didn't have it in himself to reward it. He decided he'd have to take the window exit, as per Shizune's suggestion.

He climbed out of the wooden frame and stepped onto the red, tiled roof. The storm had finally subsided, but it had left plenty of puddles and flooded streets throughout Konoha to mark its passing. He wondered if the storm had caught Sakura and Sasuke.

He leaped from the Hokage tower to an adjacent roof to his right and started toward the center of the village. With the storm clouds gone, the unobstructed bright of the full moon lit his path. When he was certain Morino Ibiki was not tailing him, he leaped onto the roof of a three-storied building, then two, then the wet concrete of the central Konoha market place. Closed shutters and empty fruit stands greeted him, as he put his hands into his khaki pockets and started walking.

He followed the route he took every night after getting out of work. The central market place was quieter than usual, no doubt because the rainstorm had forced people to retire early. As he walked on, he noticed that a few late night sake bars were still open and running. When he passed by the bar he used to frequent before the war, the kind old lady, who always gave him free grilled codfish to go with his rice wine, came running out and stopped him in his tracks.

"Kakashi– I mean, Hokage-sama," She seemed embarrassed to have made the mistake of addressing him casually. "It's good to see the war hasn't changed you."

"Ah, Ba-chan, how have you been? How's business?" he said, smiling. He peeked inside the bar and saw a gaggle of drunk chunins trying to straighten themselves up and bow in his direction. He waved at them, just as one fell over the other and the whole group burst into sloppy fits of laughter.

"Business is getting better now that the war is over. We finally have our clientele back in the village," she said, cheerfully.

"I'm very happy to hear that."

"Won't you come in for a drink? They must be working you to the bone in that office. You look like you need a drink," she said, her palm on his back as warm as her smile.

"Perhaps some other time, Ba-chan. I have somewhere I need to be tonight."

She made him promise to drop by soon, and let him go with some grilled codfish, hurriedly packed in a steel bento box. He resumed his walk, and saw more familiar faces along the way. He realized that more and more people were going out of their way to greet him or stop him for conversation these days. They all looked at him with a glint in their eyes, blessed him with smiles that openly, unquestionably trusted him with their wellbeing.

Kakashi felt oddly at peace tonight. He was suddenly very grateful for the cool, wet air that breezed through his hair, and the earthy, green smell of rain-soaked Konoha. He'd gotten through another day, and he was going to get through many more.

As his destination inched closer, he climbed onto the roof of a small teashop that had closed business for the day. Then, he leaped onto the roof of another closed shop. He kept that up until he could see the tall, white building that was  _Konoha General_. He wasted no time after he landed on the hospital rooftop. In a few quick, measured leaps, he found himself on a wide window ledge. Inside lay Naruto, his body covered up to his chest by a clean, pristine duvet. Hyuuga Hinata was fast asleep in a chair right next to the door. She was curled up in an almost fetal position, legs drawn into her chest uncomfortably, like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. He had seen her in this room every single night since Sakura left Naruto's side.

Kakashi looked through the window a moment longer. Then, he turned back to face the night and sat down on the window ledge hunching slightly, so his hair couldn't be spotted through the window frame. He placed the bento box he'd been holding by his side and fished out an old, tattered copy of  _Icha Icha Tactics_  from his back pocket. As he started reading under the moonlight, he realized that his team was closer together now than it had been in a really long time. It wasn't saying much, perhaps. There were hurdles and obstacles still left to beat before they could truly come back together. But for now, he decided he was going to allow himself to indulge in a little hope.

* * *

 

tbc

/

 **a/n** : HOLY FUCK WE ARE CANON.

 **m** any thanks to SouthSideStory for editing the crap out of this and being a ridiculously awesome beta in general!

comments would be lovely.


	5. Your Turn to Watch My Back

Sasuke never saw the sun rise in Oto. That place was underground dungeons and elaborate, endless tunnels, and stone cold darkness. His world then was painted in broad strokes of black, and the occasional dying burst of orange, always accompanied by the ashen grey stretches of the shadows that lurked close by. He never liked it, never liked any part of Oto or his time there, but he had come to understand that darkness was more a friend than foe. Darkness perpetuated fear, foreboding, fallacies—all things Itachi had once inspired in him, all things he had once wanted to inspire in Itachi.

After he left Oto, he could never sleep a wink past the first break of day. With light came intrusion, unrest, and an unwelcome reminder of the cycle that never broke, of the patterns that held long after bones decayed and disintegrated.

The view from his window afforded a world under a penumbra of thick morning fog. There were a lot of trees surrounding the inn, which naturally meant there were very many birds whistling against the milky backdrop of the cold daybreak. He activated his lone sharingan to focus on a pair of mockingbirds, delicately perched on a frail branch of a nearby sycamore tree. He had caught them mid-assault. As one furiously tried to peck at the other’s breastbone, the branch shook violently. The second one wasted no time with a counter attack. Soon as it had dodged, it came charging back with its beak like a dagger. Before it could land a blow, however, the branch broke with an unceremonious, snapping sound. The two mockingbirds took their fight to flight, and Sasuke followed the chaos of fluttering wings until they flew out of his line of sight.

The scene reminded him of Naruto, but Sasuke didn’t get a chance to consider the thought for long. There was a quiet knock on his door, a gentle tap of knuckle against wood, then another. He didn’t say anything. He felt it was invitation enough.

Sakura pulled the sliding door open, and stepped into the room. She met his eyes with furrowed, apologetic brows, and he wondered if she thought she woke him.

“We should start back,” she said.

He studied her with his sharingan. She had made an attempt to pat her hair dry, but the ends of her hair strands still gathered water like swollen pearls. There were little wet maroon dots circling the otherwise red tunic over her collarbone. Her cheeks were dusted with a light flush of pink, unnervingly matching her hair, her lips, and that iridescent seal on her forehead. His eye fell on her eyes last. Sasuke had only seen an ocean a couple of times, but he’d heard plenty about their unimaginable depths. He thought something about the crystalline clarity of the green in her eyes belied depths of the very same nature.

“Sasuke-kun?” She spoke again.

He had been staring. He looked away from her, and put his sharingan to rest. When he raised his gaze again, he noticed the pink of her cheeks had turned a shade darker.

“We should talk to Pakkun before we leave,” she suggested, taking a few uncertain steps into the room.

“You have Kakashi’s blood?” Sasuke asked.

She reached into the pocket bag slung around her waist, and pulled out a thin, long vial of blood. She held it up, close to her face, and said, “I do.”

She proceeded to dab a little blood off the vial onto her palm, and made the hand signs for the summoning.

“Kuchiyose no Jutsu.”

“Well, well, well. Look who’s finally had the mind to summon me,” Sasuke heard Pakkun say, before he could see him through the whorls of smoke.

“Yesterday was a bit hectic. I thought rest was paramount, because we would need to start early today. Forgive us, Pakkun,” Sakura said, smiling. Sasuke noted this was the first time he’d seen her smile after his return. He found himself observing the curves of her lips—to what end, he wasn’t sure, but he was oddly pleased to see that the warmth of her smile hadn’t been robbed by the years between them.

“Don’t apologize to me. I am quite all right without you kids pestering me, but Kakashi has been worried. Don’t give your old man a heart attack before his time comes is all I’m saying.”

Sakura giggled at that—a light, dulcet sound that echoed through the quiescent, barrenness of the room.

“Why don’t you tell Kakashi-sensei to stop unnecessarily worrying and actually focus on his job for once?” she said, one hand casually reaching out to scratch Pakkun’s back affectionately.

“If you keep that up, I will tell him whatever you want,” Pakkun crooned, with a content grin plastered on his face.

“We have matters of importance to discuss,” Sasuke interrupted, glaring at them both.

Sakura retracted her hand and straightened up. She looked like a child being rebuffed by a stern teacher. Pakkun, on the other hand, had his teeth bared and looked like he was considering sinking them into Sasuke’s leg.

“Do you know how hard it is to get a back scratch being a nin-ken?” Pakkun barked at him. “Do you?”

“Hey Pakkun,” Sakura said, crouching down to his eye level. “How about this? How about after this mission is over, you come see me whenever you want a back scratch?”

“I would like that very much, yes,” Pakkun grumbled through a pout.

“It’s a deal then.” Sakura smiled, and extended her fist to Pakkun in promise. He lifted his paw, and bumped it against her bony knuckles.

“How is Naruto?” Sasuke asked.

“His condition remains unchanged,” Pakkun said, looking at him sourly.

“And I doubt he’ll be getting better any time soon,” Sakura said, swiftly getting up and dusting her knees. “We need to have a better understanding of how the Uzumaki chakra system works to be able to help him.”

“Is that what you plan to do with Karin? Study her chakra system?” Sasuke asked.

“Yes. I’m hoping that’ll give us some answers to begin with,” Sakura said, confidently.

“So, what’s the plan? How are you going to track this girl?” Pakkun asked, licking one of his paws. He seemed to have mellowed out, his anger as quick to dissipate as it was roused.

Sakura looked at him uncertainly. “Well, Karin is a sensor-type. I was thinking that if she senses Sasuke-kun’s chakra, she might just find us, instead of it being the other way around.”

Sasuke found that unsurprising and logical. To communicate his assent, he let out a firm, “Hn.”

“We’ll just keep heading North for now,” Sakura started, nervously glancing at him. She didn’t have to put into words what heading “North” meant. He understood. “We need to get out of Fire Country. She would’ve tried to get as far from Konoha as possible, so as not to be taken prisoner again. I’ll start suppressing my chakra as soon as we reach the border. She needs to believe you’re on your own, Sasuke-kun.”

“Now before you guys get on your merry way, I have to tell you something,” Pakkun started, tone grim and serious.

He looked to Sasuke, and deadpanned, “The purple ass bow and the man skirt have got to go, kid.”

Sasuke thought he heard a suppressed chuckle to his right, where Sakura was standing. He didn’t bother to confirm it, instead choosing to maintain his glare on Pakkun.

“You do have a reputation that precedes you,” Pakkun continued, blithely, and looking to Sakura, added, “ _Both_ of you. You can’t have anyone recognizing you while you wait around for this girl to find you.”

“So, you,” Pakkun looked back to Sasuke, “Get a change of clothes. Something inconspicuous, something normal people would wear. And you,” he turned to Sakura, “You gotta change your hair, Pinky.”

“Right,” Sakura said, and even without looking at her, Sasuke could detect the laugh that was probably squirming to burst out of her lips, tightly sewn in restraint.

“That is all the wisdom you’re going to get out of me for now.” Pakkun got up, and languidly stretched his limbs. “You guys better start running. Morino Ibiki sent out more tails last night. He’s taken you breaking out of his Division as a personal affront and seems hell bent on dragging you back to the village himself.”

“That might have been helpful if it was the first thing you’d said today,” Sasuke said, annoyance evident in his voice.

“Later.” Pakkun waved a mocking paw, and disappeared in a huff of smoke.

Sasuke moved to pick up his katana from the bed, but Sakura raised her hand, asking for a halt.

“Before we leave, I did bring a change of clothes for you, so if you want to change…”

She took her rucksack off her shoulders, and reached into it to pull out what looked like a pair of plain black trousers, a black shirt, and a grey vest. She reached in again, and this time pulled out an eye patch. Sasuke made no move to take the materials from her, so she set it on the bed.

“I’ll just be in the hallway, then. Come out when you’re ready.”

Sasuke stood in the empty room. He untied the bow around his waist, undressed, and changed into the new clothes. The fit was perfect, but something about the outfit felt off. He felt light in these clothes, too light, like his feet might not be able to impress the earth with the same amount of force as before. He shrugged these thoughts off, neatly folded his old clothes, and put them inside his own rucksack. He picked up the eye patch last.

Sasuke slid open the door and stepped outside. When his exposed eye landed on Sakura, shoulder casually supporting her weight against the wall, his heart skipped a beat. She had turned her hair black—no, not black. She had turned her hair dark brown, but under the dimly lit passage of the hallway, Sasuke’s eye had deceived him. For a split second, he had seen the same shade of pitch-black, which once framed his mother’s face.

“Are you okay, Sasuke-kun?” He heard Sakura say.

He turned to her unchanged eyes, and saw the concern not entirely betrayed by her words.

“Yes,” he said, struggling to slip on the mask of composure that always came so easily to him.

He could see that she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t say anything more.

* * *

Sound was every bit as bleak as Sakura had always imagined. Soon as they crossed countries at the border, the perpetual warmth of the Fire had been replaced by a cold, chill in the air like something nefarious awaited them at the next bend. The forests were thicker too, trees like giants, allowing little light to pass through their dense, majestic crowns. She wanted to spend as little time in this place as possible.

So it was with grave disappointment and quickly escalating aggravation that Sakura found herself seated in a dark and dingy bar in the outskirts of Otogakure, a week after they had first stepped into Sound Country. Sasuke sat at the bar, a considerable distance from her place in a corner table, with shoulders rigid and posture ever so painfully straight. They didn’t know one another here. They just happened to be in the same seedy bar at the same lonely time of the evening.

The irony of this ruse didn’t escape Sakura. As she picked up the porcelain cup in front of her, filled to the brim with a warm brew of _amazake_ , she fought the urge to scoff at how they were near strangers pretending to not know the little they knew. It seemed to come easily to Sasuke. He didn’t have to do anything much different than when they were not pretending, really.

She was a little appalled at how poorly she was doing. She never fancied herself a good actress, but Sakura thought she had mastered the craft of not letting her every move reveal how much Sasuke affected her. With each passing second, she was learning how untrue that was. Just like she was learning the difference between longing for him in memory and sitting fifteen feet from all of him, trying not to steal discreet glances of his back was like night and day.

She let her lips hover over the hairline crack on the curve of the porcelain cup, reveling in the dull heat of the alcohol. It hadn’t been a fluke that first day. Sound indeed was colder than Fire. There was a fireplace, alive with a roaring flame close to the bar, close to Sasuke. Although just like him, it was too far from her.

She set her cup down and cursorily looked around the bar. For an establishment that was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, it was surprisingly big and crowded. The large majority of the patrons looked to be travelers, untethered to any hidden village. She couldn’t spot a single hitai-ate in the mix. These were signs that they were surveying the right place. Words traveled along with travelers. They hoped to catch something that might give them concrete direction. Much to her dismay, drifting listlessly and waiting for Karin to find them had had little pay off.

A couple of nights ago, she had suggested to Sasuke that she might not even be in Oto, that perhaps they should start heading East to Yugakure.

“We’ll give Oto a few more days,” he’d said, with no explanation.

Sakura liked to think she was a patient person. But each disappointing sun down in Oto felt like a rusty nail scraping on the carefully polished sheen of her patience. She didn’t do well being sedimentary when there was no traction, no progress. Not even a hint that they were on the right track. It didn’t help that Sasuke was a mostly silent companion. He spoke only when vital, and according to his approximation, that wasn’t very often. In the last week they’d been together, which was more time and breath than she ever thought she would be able to spend in his company again, they had spoken to each other only a handful of times. She didn’t mind it terribly. If nothing else, this was so typical of the Sasuke of long ago that it almost managed to bring a nostalgic smile to her face.

But she couldn’t help but wonder what this place was doing to him. Did it bring back memories he’d rather not dwell upon, or did it feel like coming home?

Sasuke moved to pick up his drink and took a measured sip of it. Her eyes followed the plane of his shoulder’s shift. She wondered if he knew, if he even had the slightest clue—that he held her battered heart in the hollow of his palm, and every turn of his neck in her direction, every almost-acknowledgement felt like a gentle squeeze.

The bells atop the main entrance jingled, and three men burst into the bar, cackling in unison. Sakura smelled trouble. They didn’t look to be accomplished shinobi. Their clumsy gait and graceless movements gave them away, but anyone who didn’t bother to lay low in a place like this had to be itching to create a ruckus. She lowered her head, and smoothed over the blunt bangs she’d decided to add to her dark hair as an afterthought. She was going to give it five more minutes, then leave.

The rowdy men sat a few seats down from Sasuke at the bar. One of them was recounting a horribly boring story about his travels to Ame, but the other two seemed to think it was the most beguiling thing they’d ever heard. The cold walls of the otherwise peaceful bar rattled with the sounds of their loud, unpleasant laughter.

She decided this place was another dead end, like all the other bars and markets they had visited in Oto this week. She dove a hand into her rucksack to pull out a couple of coins, and set them on the table. She picked up her cup, and cradled it in between her palms to retain as much of its warmth as possible before walking out into the whipping, cold night air. She took one last, long gulp of her _amazake_ , and deliberately pushed her chair back with a loud, screeching sound. A signal of departure Sasuke had acquiesced to when she proposed it their first day posing as strangers.

Her signal caught the attention of a few more people than intended. As she made to pass by the bar to get to the main door, one of the loud men grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward him.

“You can’t be leaving already, sweetheart. We just got here,” he sneered, getting in her face.

Another one of the rowdy trio slid closer to her, and caught her chin in his slimy hand. “Why don’t you join us for a drink or two? I’m sure we could show you a good time.”

The third didn’t make a move to lay a hand on her, but he howled in mirth from where he sat. Sakura felt a white, hot rage reverberate across the walls of her arteries, pumping blinding fury throughout her entire being. She could demolish these vermin with a flick of a finger, but she couldn’t afford to let her identity slip right now.

“Let go,” she said, voice calm like a sea on the cusp of a storm.

“Did you hear that, Shou? This one’s got some fire in her. It’ll be fun to put it out, won’t it?” The first one said, tightening his grip on her wrist.

“I think I’ve had enough of this damn place. Let’s take this elsewhere,” the third one said, rising. Then, she was flung over the shoulder of the one who’d grabbed her first. She put up a feeble struggle, letting the punches land soft on her assailant’s back.

As she was carried out, Sakura lifted her head and watched the growing distance between herself and an unmoving, unfazed Sasuke, sitting still as a statue by the bar top, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just passed.

The men started toward the thick of the forest. Some place they could carry out the atrocity they had planned for her without intrusion. They continued to exchange stories from their travels as they walked, but now these stories were laced with ugly exploits of women from different lands. She counted the steps they’d taken from the bar, biding her time. The only thing that kept her from exploding right then and there was thinking about which of their bones she was going to break.

When they’d trudged a considerable distance, they stopped walking and Sakura was thrown on the ground like a rag doll. She landed on wet grass, the moisture on her palms an immediate relief from the repulsive heat of the man’s body.

“No one coming and going around these parts, so you can scream all you want, sweetheart.”

She let her chakra run free, feeling her own strength seep into every cell in her body. She got up with ease, reached into her rucksack and extracted a pair of black, leather gloves.

The men started laughing. At first, it was a slow rumble in their throat as if they were merely amused. Then as she slowly, wordlessly put her gloves on, they started guffawing.

“Are you planning to beat us up, little girl? Are those your battle gloves?”

“We like it when they put up a fight anyway, so this works ou—

Before the words had finished tumbling out of his mouth, Sakura had landed a chakra-infused punch on his face and sent him flying off against the trunk of a tree at least ten feet away. She charged toward the second one without missing a beat, and punched his jaw. The sound of his stifled scream was accompanied by a very quick but satisfying series of cracks. It sounded like music to Sakura’s ears.

She turned to the last one standing—the one who’d physically dragged her here, who’d recounted the most vile stories about taking advantage of women, all the while she could feel his chest swelling with pride under her. He was the biggest one of them. Easily three times her size. He looked at her now, with eyes spelling the kind of fear he apparently loved to see in his victims. She took a single step forward, and he fumbled to reach into his weapon pouch. He sent a fleet of shurikens her way, but his throw was too shaken, too weak. She dodged all of them, expelling no considerable effort.

“Who-who are you?” His voice quaked, right along with his knees.

She didn’t say anything. She wasn’t going to give him the privilege of putting a single name to the hellfire he was about to go through. All he would know about her was that he’d thought her helpless, and he’d been very gravely wrong.

He pulled out a lone kunai out of his weapon pouch, and started swinging it around, blindly. “Don’t come any closer. I’m warning you!”

She stayed put, because she knew what he was going to do next. She could read his moves like the rat cornered against a crevice-less wall that he was. And just as she expected, he suddenly started charging toward her with his kunai, letting out a guttural scream like that was going to help any.

Sakura caught his wrist with practiced precision when he swung his kunai at her. He tried to tug his wrist free, but her hold was deathly firm. He tried to strike her with his other arm, a look of supreme distress clouding over his face. She caught his fist in the gloved palm of her free hand, and crushed it.

He screamed in agony, his knees finally buckling in and sinking to the ground. She remained standing over him, one hand still gripping his wrist. She put a little pressure on her grip, and the kunai in his hand fell to the grass with a muffled clink. His head hung low, as he whimpered in pain.

“Before you lay another unsolicited finger on a woman,” Sakura started, taking the index finger of his uncrushed hand and pulling it back until she heard a breaking snap. “I want you to think long and hard about all the ways she can chew you up and spit you out.”

His cries rang across the empty night for no one to hear. She had intended to break all of his fingers, but by the time she got through three, he was delirious from pain, hardly even lucid. She settled for a punch, a non-chakra enhanced, raw punch, and watched as he toppled to his side, finally unconscious.

She stood still for a moment. She felt tired, drained. Not physically, no, but now that she’d quelled some of her rage, she felt a heavy tide rising up inside her chest. Nothing she did to these men could erase the horror they’d dealt innocent women before today. This was injustice at its ugliest, because it couldn’t be turned, couldn’t be unwritten.

There was a light shift in the air, a quiet shuffle of trees, and she raised her eyes to see Sasuke standing atop a nearby branch. She didn’t know how long he’d been there, nor how much he had seen.

Dusting off her gloved hands, Sakura reined in her chakra, leaving only the minimal amount unguarded to maintain her henge. Then she started walking away—still dirty, still angry—leaving behind half-dead monsters in her wake.

She heard Sasuke fall in step behind her. She wasn’t wearing the Haruno circle, but she still hoped he got a good look of her back.

* * *

tbc

/

 **a/n** :  _amazake_  is a traditional low alcoholic drink made of fermented rice, normally consumed warm.

 **t** his chapter is dedicated to bini, whose christmas present will be the one to beat for many years to come.

 **a** s always, many thanks to my lovely beta, SouthSideStory, for all her help with this chapter.

i also want to take a moment to thank everyone who has left kudos and comments on this story. your support, in whatever form it comes, means the world to me.


	6. Skip the Charades

Sasuke didn't protest when Sakura suggested leaving Oto the next day. Karin was not in Sound. Some part of him had known that all along, but this place had always given him answers, no matter how unsavory they might have been. He had hoped this would be no exception, but he was wrong and finally ready to admit it.

Sakura didn't speak much on the way to Steam Country. They traveled with a good distance between one another, but every now and then, they would catch up and share a few words. Mostly it would be about any peculiarities they might have observed in their surroundings. They were in unmanned land now, so they needed to stay alert. These places often tended to be more dangerous than shinobi-inhabited countries. Rogue ninjas and mercenaries roamed these woods in packs, waiting to prey on unarmed, weak travelers.

Crossing borders only took half the day. If they kept going through the night, they'd make it to Yugakure by sunrise. But just as dusk hit they happened upon a village, unaccounted for in Sakura's tattered map. He spotted the floating lanterns from about a mile away. Sasuke wasn't big on festivities of any sort, so he had no inclination for a detour, but when Sakura caught up with him around the outskirts, he could see that she did. Chin raised and eyes reflecting the illuminated sky, she gaped at the display in what could only be wonder.

"This would be a good place to gather intel," Sasuke said, knowing she would never suggest they stop.

"You think so?" She looked at him with expectant eyes. Clear and transparent.

"Yes." No, he didn't, but she needed some sense of normalcy restored. She had been different since last night; quieter, more solemn.

She lit up at his response, and nodded. They walked into the village, far enough apart that no one would assume they were together, but close enough that he could see the spring in her steps, the excited lift of her shoulders. This could be the closest she had come to looking like the twelve-year-old girl he once knew, and the thought warmed him suddenly in the cool night.

They didn't have to walk far. The village was small and the celebrations had spread to the extremities. The roads were lined by flame torches and littered with villagers, laughing, singing, dancing. Some of them had a better go of it than the others, and Sasuke attributed that to the jars of sake that he observed being passed around.

Sakura was greeting people, as they crossed her path. She made it look so easy, like being kind and open was as simple as waving at strangers, like the secret to letting one's demons rest lay in the smiles she collected as she went along.

It was a harvest festival. Sasuke could see the top of a large  _Inari_  idol from where he was, and as they inched closer to the market square, he saw that the rice deity was resting atop a chariot, surrounded by several bowls of steaming rice, no doubt offered in prayer for a bountiful harvest for the upcoming year. There were many stalls, each propositioning something different. Food, masks, balloons, the place was crowded with various manifestations of merriment.

In a crowd filled with people in traditional clothing, the two of them stuck out like a couple of odd peas in an otherwise uniform pea pod. There was a stark difference, however, in how the natives flocked to Sakura, and how he maintained a clean radius of several feet as he navigated his way through the crowd. He stayed a good distance behind her, following her with measured steps. A group of children ran up to her and pulled her arms. She bent down, smiling, and allowed one of them to whisper something in her ears. Sakura giggled in return.

He had seen her wreak havoc last night, seen her tear men apart with bared teeth and bare hands. Sasuke valued power above most things in life, and if he didn't already think she was a force to be reckoned with before, he was doubly certain of it now. Like a perpetually unwavering fire—she kept you warm, but she could also turn you to ashes. She was everything his once annoying genin teammate had not been.

Why was it then that he kept looking for signs of the same annoying teammate in the flames in front of him?

* * *

They started moving the chariot sometime after nightfall. The chariot wasn't being pulled by horses, but the hands of men and women, with palms around the chariot pole and some delirious combination of excited and labored screams about their throats. The rice deity was being taken around the village, moved by the sheer will and grit of the villagers, so every last road and every last house could be blessed with good fortune. In the frenzy of this procession, Sakura lost sight of Sasuke. She knew he'd been tailing her, but once the scattered crowd started moving in one direction, like a thick river furiously running downstream, he was nowhere to be found.

"Oneesan, where are you from?"

"What is your name, Oneesan?"

"Are you here for the festival?"

"Have you taken a ride on the back of the chariot? It's so much fun!"

Sakura was surrounded by a horde of mouthy, young children. Unlike the adults, these kids were not dressed in traditional clothing. They wore dusty, shabby clothes, and if it weren't for the excitement that shone in their curious eyes and uninhibited smiles, she would've thought they looked seriously out of place.

"My name is Sakura. I am from a village encased in green far, far away. Yes, I am visiting for the festival, and no, I am have not taken a ride on the back of the chariot," she patiently answered their questions, coming down on one knee so they could see eye to eye.

"Do you want to ride the back of the chariot with us, Sakura-chan?" A little boy standing close by grabbed her hand. She felt a pinch in her chest. His touch was slight but warm, like the subdued heat that tempers your skin on a pleasant summer day. He had big, brown eyes and dark hair. He didn't look one bit like Naruto, but she was still reminded of the only person who still called her  _Sakura-chan_.

The rest of the kids had taken after the boy and were chanting a medley of  _Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!_

She smiled. "I would love to."

The children let out a victory shriek and started running after the chariot. Sakura trailed behind them, the little boy pulling her by her wrist. The rest of the kids had gotten quite a few paces ahead of them, so she abruptly stopped, bringing the boy to a halt with her. He turned around and looked at her worriedly.

"Do you not like the game, Sakura-chan?"

"I do!" She said, "but you know what I would like even more? Beating your friends to the chariot."

With that, she took her rucksack off her back and looped her arms through the front so it was hugging her chest now. She turned around then and dropped to her knees.

"Hop on, soldier."

He jumped onto her back with a delighted chuckle. She gripped his legs firmly, stood back up, and started sprinting toward the chariot.

Even as she smiled and ran through the chilly wind, heart and mind at ease alike, she couldn't help but wonder about their conspicuous lack of adult supervision.

The answer was staring her in the face, but she didn't want to acknowledge it.

* * *

She was carrying a child on her back and running after the chariot.

That was how he found her again, her laughter ringing alongside the cackling of a pack of overzealous children, hair blowing every which direction in the wind, leaving her undisguised, unburdened eyes wide open for his perusal. She usually wore her concerns as armor, her burdens as a millstone around her neck, but like this she was completely vulnerable, like this she was completely free.

He wondered what that might feel like, to be rid of the nightmares that played in front of closed eyes every night, to not have trouble breathing every time he remembered the feel of his mother's fingers spreading ointment across his burnt cheeks, to be able to open his arms wide so the wind may blow away the ashes he still held close to his chest.

He would give anything to escape the fate of the last one standing.

Sasuke watched them run after the chariot until they were a blur in the distance. He turned to the market square. The place was barren, streets and stalls empty but for the mess of the celebration that had just moved. Trashcans overflowing with paper plates and cups, colorful banners limp and drooping to the ground, upturned chairs and tables. There was something awfully morbid about it all. Desolate of any life, it could very well have been a scene of mass murder.

"My child, what troubles you?" A raspy voice spoke from behind Sasuke. He made a sharp turn, hand reflexively reaching for his katana.

An old woman stood behind the counter of an  _okonomiyaki_ stall. She had deep wrinkles on her face to match the withered voice that he had just heard a moment ago.

"Nothing." He straightened up and let his hand fall to the side.

"Well, aren't we big on bold faced lies?" She bent down to pick up a cleaning brush and started scrubbing the grill.

Sasuke watched her, without offering a response. Her arms looked fragile, blue-green spider veins roaming across loose skin, but he could tell she possessed strength. He knew from his time helping his uncle clean the ovens at his bakery that greases didn't come off steel very easily, but the old woman in front of him was making it look like a piece of cake.

"So," she began, scrubbing over a particularly stubborn grease stain, "where are you from?"

"I am not tied to a place."

"You may not be now, but you've got to have been born somewhere. Where's home?"

The place of his birth also happened to be the place of his family's decimation. Home was an abstract concept at this point; all he had to call his own in Konoha were two tombstones, one short of the whole of his bleeding heart.

"Fire," he said, not quite believing it himself.

"Ah, you're not just a stranger. You're a foreigner." She had finished scrubbing the grill and was pouring a bucket of water over it. "What brings you to Ohira? Surely, you didn't come all this way for a harvest festival?"

"No, I didn't."

Something about his response made her smile. "You're not very chatty, are you?"

"I must get going now." He started to turn to leave.

"Where have you got to run? Those kids will definitely keep your girlfriend occupied for a while."

For a moment, he wasn't sure what she was talking about, but as soon as the realization hit him, his ears started turning warm.

"She's not my girlfriend," he mumbled, hotly.

"It's okay. Your secret is safe with me," she said, a mischievous smile blooming on her lips.

"She is  _not_  my girlfriend," he said again, with more conviction this time.

"If you say so." She gave him a knowing look, and he felt the heat from his ears spread to his cheeks. "Relax, I'm just pulling your leg."

Sasuke was suddenly reminded of Aunt Uruchi, who often teased him about the girls who ran after him in academy. The old woman in front of him even looked like his aunt a little, which was more than just mildly unsettling.

"She's… an old friend."

"Old friends are good, they stick by you."

Sasuke looked to the ground.

"Sometimes even when they shouldn't," he said, more to himself than to her.

"That's for them to decide and you to accept now, isn't it?"

He had thought about this numerous times and never been able to come to a conclusion he could make peace with. Accepting it no questions asked, like she was suggesting, hadn't crossed his mind, though now that he was thinking about it, he supposed that's exactly what he had been doing.

"Hn."

"Would you like some  _okonomiyaki_? You look like you could use a meal."

He looked up at her, with a questioning eye.

"Yes, I can pack a plate for your friend too," she said, tone gruff but eyes bright.

Sasuke didn't have smiles to give out to strangers as readily as Sakura did, but he made his gratitude known with a curt nod.

* * *

_Okaasan once said that it isn't easy loving a great man. A great man is never alone. A great man is never just a man. He could be the beating heart of a famished revolution, or the sun on a limitless sky, all burning, all enduring, all watching. No doubt she had Otousan in mind when she thought to share this particular nugget of wisdom, but could she also have foreseen a fate too similar to her own for her daughter? If so, color me unsurprised; Okaasan always did know the truth about most things._

_It has come to be that her words now reflect the terrains of my every day._

_He is a great man. He walks around with the weight of the world upon his shoulders. He tries to mask it with a smile, and I am certain he fools everyone. Because he is the warmest presence I've ever known. Comforting. Enlightening. Ebullient. It's not difficult to see why people inherently trust him. But I have seen not only the countless scars on his bare skin, but also felt the hurt that still lingers close beneath them. I am familiar with the perpetual unrest that stirs within him. He is driven most solely by the elusive promise of a peaceful horizon._

_I want to tell him it's an impossible dream. He is far too optimistic. He has witnessed the horrors of war, he has seen the face of utter depravity and traced the ridges of its cutting jawline, he has loved, he has lost—we have these things in common, and yet, I don't understand him._

_He is surely destined for greatness. He is the founding Hokage of the Village Hidden in Leaf. And I will love him whether there is light or dark in our coming days. It is certainly not easy, but it has become second nature to me._

Sakura closed the journal and put it back into her rucksack. She was on night watch, perched on a sturdy branch of a big oak tree while Sasuke rested underneath. The night air was electric with a cool chill, but she was comfortable enough in her half-sleeved shirt. She shifted an inch and raised her gaze to consider the sky. The sprawling canvas of midnight blue was adorned with stars, distant but luminous.

Uzumaki Mito was not someone Sakura had given much thought to before reluctantly opening the journal she had picked up from her shishou's study. But her words somehow felt familiar; like they spoke of the same heartache she bore. Even though there were little to no similarities between the Uzumaki matriarch and herself that she could think of, the ups and downs of loving a faraway man must be somewhat universal.

They didn't end up spending a lot of time at the festival. Much as she would have loved to spend the night running around with the kids, they could not afford to stay exposed like that for long. They needed to keep moving, keep trudging along the ghost trail they were chasing. Only a few hours after leaving the festival, Sasuke had suggested they stop for a bit before sunrise. They weren't going to make it to Yugakure on time anyway, so it'd be best to rest a while before the final stretch, he'd rationalized. Then, he'd pulled out a plastic wrapped plate of  _okonomiyaki_  from his rucksack and held it out to her. She'd been a little startled at the sight, but she had accepted the food all the same.

She wondered if he was asleep now. He didn't sleep easy. He insisted on taking watch almost every night. It was only when he was too tired to blatantly ignore her offer to take watch that she did. He wasn't a restless insomniac, however, so Sakura could never tell if he was asleep unless she looked. Given how often he had caught her sneaking peeks at him lately, she didn't feel like taking the chance tonight.

Before long, the sun was crowning, and the night sky was taken by cracks of splendid orange and purple. Sakura sat still, her rucksack warming her lap. It had been a while since she'd had a tranquil moment like this to herself.

"It's light." She heard Sasuke say from below.

She was surprised she hadn't been startled by his voice. He was starting to sound familiar again, and the thought unwittingly put a smile on her face.

"It's beautiful," she returned.

There was a pause, an empty moment, then, "Yes, it is."

She was suddenly very aware of the warmth spreading across her cheeks. She continued looking at the sun as it inched up the horizon bit by bit.

"Do you ever think about what things would have been like? If you hadn't left that night?" She asked, voice merely a whisper.

Her question hung in the chilly morning air for a second, two, three—

"No."

It was a firm no, lacking in doubt and hesitance.

"Right," she said, shrugging the dismissal off, and made to stand up on the branch. "We should probably be getting back on the road."

She picked up her rucksack and looped her arms through the straps.

"I don't like dwelling on my mistakes," she heard him say. "And leaving was the biggest mistake I made."

Sakura felt a dam break within her. There were no tears, no shortening of breath, no outwardly sign of the little girl from the night he left—the same little girl whose broken heart was still in her safekeeping. Nothing to show or hide, as she stood still, looking at the rising sun, paralyzed and awash with feelings that were neither here nor there.

"You did what you had to," she said, when she found her voice.

"I hurt a lot of people."

"Yes, but you were hurting too. We are not ourselves when we're hurting, Sasuke-kun. We're only puppets to the machinations of our pain."

There was another hollow moment, then, "I'm sorry, Sakura."

It was always when she least expected it, when she was least prepared that she was made to come undone. She held her tongue, afraid any word out of her mouth might give away the knot burning in the back of her throat, or the wild thumping of her heart.

They stood in silence until Sasuke made a move to start back on their way. They didn't look each other in the eye. They didn't say anything more, or as in Sakura's case, anything at all.

They didn't need to.

* * *

tbc

/

 **a** **/n** :  _Inari_ is a Shinto deity of rice.  _Okonomiyaki_  is a Japanese pan fried dish made mainly of cabbage and batter, though it is customary to throw in more ingredients depending upon preference.

 **b** ig, big thanks as always to SouthSideStory, who continues to come through as the world's most awesome beta!

 **a** ny feedback would just be the best.


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